The haunted house
in his literary productions “a buzz of conversation,” wherein appeared
regularly, like the cry of a tame duck, his own “Quate! quate!” as
he sat next to Amathea. And now and then “Lor!” from her ladyship.
He was explaining to her the three main theories of apparitions:
“Illusions” and the two “Phantasms,” _i.e._ “Phantasms of the dead,” as
distinguished from “Phantasms of the living,” or P.D., and P.L. as (he
assured her) they were called among the experts of psychology. He told
her about Meyer’s theory, Lombroso’s experiments and Julia; also Lodge.
He had the cunning of his kind, and knew that an academic reputation
is built by repeating the very little one has read to the completely
ignorant.
Lord Hellup had been masterfully captured to sit by the side of the
handsome Hilda, and he was telling her how sure he did love an old
English house, and how it just got him where he wanted it. The handsome
Hilda was putting into her voice such inflections as she felt suitable
to the occasion.
But John Maple—John Maple was occupied by greater things—one of which
was Bo.
The further conference of those young people needed secrecy, but that
was not so difficult to attain at a babbling table as one might think,
for Bo and John were covered by the direct syncopated speech of Lord
Hellup and the loud, often stammering, always quacking spate of the
don, as also by the comments, not restrained in tone, big, hearty,
of Amathea, First Baroness Mere de Beaurivage (you may blame me for
calling her First Baroness Mere de Beaurivage if you like, but I pass
the buck to her—it is her own expression).
However, they had to wait, for hardly had John got as far as the first
few questions when Amathea gave over Lord Hellup to her hostess and
captured John.
It was not till she had ceased her description of the opening of
Parliament, which had ended by her nudging John Maple jocosely in the
ribs to reward him for a mild jest, and swung round again as on a large
swivel to talk to Lord Hellup, that John was free to turn again to
Isabeau and renew the interrupted crime.
“Am I talking too loud?” he said, though he might have concocted
with her a plot to murder his sovereign for all that the eager
conversationalists on either flank would have known of it.
“No, Jacko,” she answered. “They’re bawling and deaf to the world.”
“I’ll wrap it up, all the same,” he said. “Follow close.”
And then continued pleasantly, not too emphatically, in this singular
fashion:
“It’s astonishing how much later we are in Sussex than in town. Did you
notice that? I mean, have you noticed the state of the woods compared
with any square in London? Or the parks? Do you think you could get
hold of a large piece of black cloth after dinner and pleat it so
as to make a sort of cloak? And it’s all nonsense about hearing the
nightingale before the cuckoo. Like that ass said the other day in
‘Nature Notes.’”
His partner answered with simplicity:
“I never can get these English birds. I used to think the nightingale
said ‘nightingale,’ just like the cuckoo says ‘cuckoo.’ Yes, I did.
I’ve got exactly what you want. It’s a cloak of my own. You’ve got
black trousers, and you can keep black socks. Only no clocks, you know.”
At this moment Lord Hellup interrupted to ask across the table:
“Jacko, what do you say about it?”
This was the third time the peer had called her nephew Jacko in her
hearing and Aunt Hilda was impressed.
“About what?” said John cheerfully.
“Your aunt says that the only difference between making farming pay and
losing on it is the amount of trouble you take.”
He shook his head.
“We have neither of us farmed,” he said.
Then he resumed, to Bo:
“It’s true, though. You _can_ make it pay, I believe. We’ve got a
neighbour here who makes it pay by asking whether, if I got hold of
some white paper, you could make it into a ruff for me? That’s all
that’s wanted. Making farming pay. We’d stick it on the top of the
cloak. That, and looking carefully after things and not going too much
up to London, and I’m sure anyone could make it pay. I could wear the
whole damn contraption on top of my head, and you would sew the ruff on
top of the neck. Then, as I am sure, thank God....”
“Thank God!” answered Bo gently.
“Bo,” interrupted her father again, “here’s Hilda Maple saying we make
farming pay in America.”
“Don’t you believe it, Hilda,” said the young woman, using the
Christian name for elders, after the modern fashion. “From the tallest
tower of my father’s castle beyond the seas as far as the eye can reach
over our broad lands there is not a hovel but what is derelict.”
She resumed rapidly to John:
“What about him?” and nodded towards Corton, who was solemnly pouring
out the better wine for Lord Hambourne, whom he pitied for a gentleman,
and poor.
“I can believe that,” said John to her emphatically. “Any amount of
derelict farms in New England too. I’m going to see him after lunch.
And when I’ve seen him we three will arrange to meet, because you can’t
really make farming pay on old land. That’s the reason.”
For ten minutes the plot was interrupted by the next artificial turn
between Amathea and John, which was played upon this occasion to the
tune of the beauty of the English climate and ended with a second
nudge to reward a second jest before the swivel turned to the left
again after the stern law of the tables of the rich.
Then the two young people clinched the thing.
“Aunt Hilda has made a wonderful success of the place,” he said. And he
caught his aunt’s eye as he said it. “And I must show you the new rock
garden to-morrow. She put Alpine flowers in it, and a special sort that
they thought could not grow in England, and it’s doing wonderfully.
I’ll take him out there after lunch and haunt him. Then, when he’s
back, we could have a game of billiards, fifty up. Anything up. Then
I’ll bring Corton round to you there. But you can make almost anything
grow in England, in the south at least, here in Sussex, if you take
trouble. Then we will conspire, my dear, it won’t take long.”
“Take him out—soon—and haunt him,” whispered Bo, as they got up. She
was burning to begin.
So was John. But he had to restrain himself for an hour. His aged guest
was in the habit of sleeping after the midday meal of a Sunday—he had
done so in the days when Sunday was his one day of rest and he did so
still. He chose a deep chair apart in the Library and there grunted
and snored at peace till half-past three. His host watched and waited.
As he came out, still heavy with sleep, and cramming into his pocket
the large coloured handkerchief with which he had covered his head in
slumber, John met him and took him prisoner, told him they might walk
out gently for a while, as the day was still and pleasant. He led the
way to the hall, put on his victim’s coat with tender care and opened
the door into the garden.
With the kindest touch in the world he slid his hand and forearm into
the elbow of Lord Mere de Beaurivage, leading him out into the garden
with all the affection of a relative. It is a vulgar, familiar gesture
which he would have sickened to make had not stern duty prescribed it.
He must obey Bo.
As for his captive, that elderly peer was actually flattered. True,
John Maple was a commoner; but then he was a sort of squire, and as
Amathea wanted the place so badly, and as John Maple was a kind of heir
(the Baron did not know the exact position—perhaps there was an entail,
or something: he didn’t understand these things) it was as well to be
friends.
John Maple led out through the damnable rhododendrons and across the
accursed rock garden to where Aunt Hilda had arranged a little fountain
with a leaden Cupid in the middle holding a duck which squirted a
fountain of water from its bill.
“I’d as lief ’ave a rest, Mr. Miple,” said the elder man, “quite a
short walk puffs me.”
There was a bench, and they sat down.
The splashing of the water was the only sound. It was still all about.
John Maple remembered how all this bit had looked in his childhood,
not garden but wild undergrowth; how he had cut a fork for a catapult
from a hazel here; and how once on the edge of that scrub, being all
alone, he had looked wide-eyed at a fox lurching by with a sly smile
showing its sharp teeth on its face.
He saw the old rough again clearly in his mind. It hardened him to
his duty. He must sweep away all that horror of Alpine garden and
rhododendrons and fountain, and replant the wild. But to do that he
must achieve. And to achieve he must move Acheron and the Nether World.
“It’s very quiet, Lord Mere,” he began, “especially after London.” He
thought with justice that this gambit would suit the mind of his guest.
And his guest replied that he couldn’t a-bear London, except o’ course
for meeting one’s friends; but there, country friends and country ways
were the best.
“It’s in the quiet of Rackham,” said John, after a little calculated
pause, “that I remember my childhood.” He was violating sacred things,
but he had his duty to do. “I was a nervous child,” he went on. “They
always had to leave a light in my room. And my dear old nurse would sit
awake for hours with the door open of her room down the passage. She
never allowed them to frighten me with the story, you know.”
“What story?” said Lord Mere, in whose solid mind there were two very
clear categories—nonsense in books and things as reely did ’appen.
“Oh,” went on John hurriedly, and as though to get over something
unpleasant as quickly as possible, “the story of the ghost, you
know.... _She believed it_—dear old thing. She would have thought it
impious not to believe in spirits. And on the top of that there was the
feeling she had for the family. But she loved me more, and she would
never let me hear of it. But I couldn’t help hearing of it. There was a
foolish maid who spoke once ... and terrified me. And I heard the groom
complaining to my father about the terror of the horses on a certain
night.”
“What’s that about the ’orses?” asked Lord Mere nervously, and with the
beginning of an ill-ease in his heart.
“Well, you know,” said John, “animals are supposed to see these things
from the other world sometimes when we can’t. It’s no wonder I was
terrified by the story as a child. I used to dream of it. And once,
you know—well, of course, it’s all nonsense. But children are the prey
of such things.... Once I _did_ think I saw it—just at that season of
the year ... this season ... standing quite clearly in the firelight.
I hadn’t been well, and I think that’s the reason they had put me in
the old room with the big bed, over the drawing-room. So that nurse
could be next door. I had been asleep, and in the middle of a terrible
nightmare. I can’t remember the nightmare, except some confused
impression of violence and,” he sank his head, “a child couldn’t know
the name for it ... but it was the shadow of Death.... I remember that
panic acutely still. I was only ten—I woke up, suddenly—broad awake. I
sat up in the bed trembling—and, oh, Lord Mere” (and here John looked
at the old man’s face and saw it beginning to stare, the head drawn
back a little), “it was an agony I shall never quite forget.... It was
an illusion, I know. But....”
“Course it was, boy. Course it was, Mr. Miple, I mean.” He wheezed into
an uncomfortable laugh. “Yer know that as well as I does!”
“Yes, Lord Mere,” said John thoughtfully, “I suppose I know it _now_.
One grows out of these things. But it was abominably real then.... I
don’t know why, but this time of year it still comes back to me....
Association, I suppose.”
“Not that you’ve seen nothing since, Mr. Miple?” pursued his lordship
anxiously.
“No, no, no!” John assured him. “I am sure it was a matter of health,